A newly selected Green candidate for one of the party’s safest wards was a vocal supporter of the campaign to force Brighton academic Kathleen Stock out of her job.
Brighton and Hove’s Green Party announced this week that Tom Pashby had been selected to contest the Regency ward, which has been held by the Greens since 2007.
However some party members say Pashby’s public support for the campaign against Dr Stock – which involved masked protesters, stickers and posters being put up on campus – makes him unsuitable as a candidate for next year’s election.
Pashby was quoted in several local and national titles supporting the campaign, saying protesters were “on the right side of history”.
The campaign was reported as harassment to Sussex Police, who launched an investigation, and condemned by the University of Sussex.
One party member, who also lives in Regency ward, said he believed many local party members were unaware of this when they were selected last month.
Steve Moses said: “When their name came up, I googled it and the Kathleen Stock campaign came up.
“Taking either side of a debate on this contentious issue is one thing, and I wouldn’t condemn anyone for taking the other side. Many people holding those views think it’s a moral position and I respect that.
“But I would personally campaign against Tom Pashby because they did cross a line – they campaigned for someone who was taking part in this debate in a respectful and academic, well researched way to lose her livelihood and reject academic freedom.
“I don’t think she’s said anything that was meant to be hurtful, harmful or disrespectful.
“You shouldn’t campaign for someone to lose their job because you don’t agree with them.”
Another local party member, Ali Ceesay, said: “I’m really concerned how any due process could result in selecting a candidate who has been vocal in supporting a campaign of targeted harassment against Kathleen Stock, a lesbian feminist in our city.
“His uncritical support of this campaign which included masked men, threats to her safety and a poster and sticker campaign in her place of work shows a concerning lack of judgment. Moreover the Green Party, and the council have a clear statutory duty to promote social cohesion and harmony.
“It is baffling as to how Tom has been selected.”
A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove Green Party said: “We welcome the selection of a candidate with lived experience as a trans/non-binary person.
“If elected as a councillor, they will be subject to the council’s code of conduct which requires them to treat residents with respect.
“It also identifies that councillors have a right to expect respect in return while performing their role in supporting residents with any enquiries they have irrespective of their views.
“Tom Pashby was supportive of the campaign at the University of Sussex to protest against what campaigners have deemed as ‘institutional transphobia’.
“They used their experience as a campaigner to comment on the events and connect their fellow trans and non-binary students with journalists to help them get their perspectives heard.”
Mx Pashby said: “As a non-binary person, who is a student at the university, I believe that the University of Sussex must come to terms with its own institutional transphobia and to start the process of rebuilding trust with the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I called for (and still hope for) Sussex to commission an independent investigation into its own institutional transphobia.
“If I am elected, I would like it to be clear to residents that I am there to support them. If people come to me with a query, in good faith, I’ll do my best to help them. The nature of personal philosophy is that everyone is different. I will of course do my best for residents in my role.”
Lets hope the people in Regency Ward kick this bigot out.
Or maybe the Green’s might get a grip.
Puts Regency ward voters in a bit of a bind, doesn’t it. You either vote for this person because you’re blindly Green no matter what (poor souls, if that’s what they are), or you don’t vote for this person because of what they participated in re Ms Stock – plus the fact, that this person is ‘parachuted in’ by virtue of being at the uni and is just an activist with no true Brighton connection. They will be off elsewhere in due course, just trying to promote their agenda in another place.
Residents do not need this sort of thing. Most residents just want proper services, which they pay through the nose for without getting those services.
The Greens would not know what the word ‘grip’ means – it’s all about their warped ideology, which does not serve the people of B&H. If Regency ward thinks that the right thing to do is to vote for these two candidates and put them on the Council, then maybe we could flog off Regency ward to some other council. Even the absentee Druitts are better than this pair.
I mean, it’s a bit of a first in some ways. He’s risen to prominence for actually accomplishing a stated goal, unlike many Greens.
There is a third option, just to widen your bind a little. Plenty of people actually agree that Stock should never have been allowed to air her views in a mainstream university. It’s a shame that it all had to come to a head in the way it did, but the quiet methods apparently didn’t work.
Seriously? Have the Greens learnt nothing from the Aimee Challenor debacle?
When have the Greens ever learnt anything – apart from raising council tax and parking charges?
Sounds about right… Bigoted, Bigmouthed, Condescending, Narrow-minded, Bully……
What’s the problem?
This person ticks all the boxes on the Green candidate spreadsheet. 10/10 NUTTER.
A weirdo of the highest order
The look on his face speaks volumes, arrogance and contempt for anyone that disagrees with his ideologies, a typical Green and bully to boot.
It’s a big NO from Brighton.
Come back Tom and Alex. All is forgiven!
Surely it would be wise for the Greens to select a slightly less contentious vaguely humanoid candidate?!
“Plenty people” = ? How many? That candidate should be hung up the suspension lines of the parachute in which the candidate arrived and/or quietly dumped elsewhere.
Gareth Hall will be out campaigning for him.
He was vocal in his support on line yesterday for this “student”.
Says all we need to know about Gareth and the Greenies.
No real connection to the Ward, will be happy to promote their personal issues above the residents, dogma over being dogmatic, a nasty bully – sounds like a Green candidate.
interesting diversion to Aimee Knight (née Challenor) (who he/she?) and quick wiki look reveals all = a bit smeary to tar all green candidates in this nasty way but this is municipal politics inn’nt
When will these idiots, such as Pashby, come to their senses and stop pretending that someone with a male body is a woman, and vice versa? Non-binary? Nonsensical more likely. And a person in drag is a person in drag.
Please do not vote Green, Brighton deserves better. Local independent representation is the only way forwards, enough party politics and patronising candidates who are parachuted in to “safe” seats regardless of any connection or life experience within the wards they “represent”. Regency Ward (and other wards) need to get out and vote, 38% turnout says it all 🙁
The usual disgusting misogyny and homophobia from the green party. Brighton and Regency deserve better than this rancid men’s rights activists. The greens should be ashamed, I’m ashamed I ever voted for them.
Man harasses a lesbian woman- who is smarter and more accomplished than him- out of her job because she hurt his feelings, and gets rewarded for it. History is a circle.
I’m sick of these plastic greens.
They need to be defeated in the election so they realise they work for the people.